Novel hantavirus identified in black-bearded tomb bats, China

Hantaviruses cause life-threatening diseases in human worldwide. Rodents, insectivores and bats are known hantaviral reservoirs, but lack of complete genomic sequences of bat-borne hantaviruses impedes phylogenetic and evolutionary comparison with those of rodents and insectivores. Here, a novel bat-borne hantavirus, Laibin virus (LBV), has been identified in a black-bearded tomb bat in China. The complete genomic sequence shows that LBV is only distantly related to all previously known bat-borne hantaviruses. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.